Tump Pack drew a shaken, unhappy breath.

“Now, I reckon you see whut a nigger-stopper is.”

Peter stood in the sunshine, looking at the estoppel clause, his lips agape.  Twice he read it over.  It held something of the quality of those comprehensive curses that occur in the Old Testament.  He moistened his lips and looked at Tump.

“Why that can’t be legal.”  His voice sounded empty and shallow.

“Legal!  ‘Fo’ Gawd, nigger, whauh you been to school all dese yeahs, never to heah uv a nigger-stopper befo’!”

“But—­but how can a stroke of the pen, a mere gesture, estop a whole class of American citizens forever?” cried Peter, with a rising voice.  “Turn it around.  Suppose they had put in a line that no white man should own that land.  It—­it’s empty!  I tell you, it’s mere words!”

Tump cut into his diatribe:  “No use talkin’ lak dat.  Our ’ciety thought you wuz a aidjucated nigger.  We didn’t think no white man could put nothin’ over on you.”

“Education!” snapped Siner.  “Education isn’t supposed to keep you away from shysters!”

“Keep you away fum ’em!” cried Tump, in a scandalized voice. “‘Fo’ Gawd, nigger, you don’ know nothin’!  O’ co’se a aidjucation ain’t to keep you away fum shysters; hit’s to mek you one ’uv ’em!”

Peter stood breathing irregularly, looking at his deed.  A determination not to be cheated grew up and hardened in his nerves.  With unsteady hands he refolded his deed and put it into his pocket, then he turned about and started back up the village street toward the bank.

Tump stared after him a moment and presently called out: 

“Heah, nigger, whut you gwine do?” A moment later he repeated to his friend’s back:  “Look heah, nigger, I ’vise you ag’inst anything you’s gwine do, less’n you’s ready to pass in you’ checks!” As Peter strode on he lifted his voice still higher:  “Peter!  Hey, Peter, I sho’ ’vise you ’g’inst anything you’s ’gwine do!”

A pulse throbbed in Siner’s temples.  The wrath of the cozened heated his body.  His clothes felt hot.  As he strode up the trash-piled street, the white merchants lolling in their doors began smiling.  Presently a laugh broke out at one end of the street and was caught up here and there.  It was the undying minstrel jest, the comedy of a black face.  Dawson Bobbs leaned against the wide brick entrance of the livery-stable, his red face balled into shining convexities by a quizzical smile.

“Hey, Peter,” he drawled, winking at old Mr. Tomwit, “been investin’ in real estate?” and broke into Homeric laughter.

As Peter passed on, the constable dropped casually in behind the brown man and followed him up to the bank.

To Peter Siner the walk up to the bank was an emotional confusion.  He has a dim consciousness that voices said things to him along the way and that there was laughter.  All this was drowned by desperate thoughts and futile plans to regain his lost money, flashing through his head.  The cashier would exchange the money for the deed; he would enter suit and carry it to the Supreme Court; he would show the money had not been his, he had had no right to buy; he would beg the cashier.  His head seemed to spin around and around.